L'enfer, c'est les autres.

Bacon, Leek, and Potato au Gratin

2011-12-26T17:09:00.003+01:00

Since we were planning a quiet little Christmas dinner, we wanted to do something special yet simple. I've had gratin on my mind for the last few weeks so I took a peek in Mastering the Art of French Cooking for ideas. I found two. One was the master gratin recipe and the second was a recipe for ham and leek gratin. Sections of leek are parboiled in salt water and boil, wrapped in ham, then covered in sauce then baked until beautiful. We didn't have any ham, but we had freshly made bacon. So we went ahead with the idea that we would make the bacon leek gratin and put it on top of potatoes.

Leek rolled in bacon

The bacon rolled leeks on the potatoes

The egg and cream mixture

Bacon, Leek, and Potato au Gratin

Bacon!

2011-12-26T16:55:00.008+01:00

After years of wanting to, I finally cured my own bacon at home. I realize that this is almost passé back home where all things bacon became so popular that it's now uncool, but here in Hungary serving and curing food is something that many families embrace as a way of life, certainly not a passing trend.

I conceived the idea that since we were hosting Christmas this year that I would cure my own bacon for our Christmas breakfast. I was very easily able to purchase a beautiful slab of pork belly at the market, about 4 kilos worth, with the ribs still attached.

I then removed the ribs and used them in a Japanese curry, which was amazing. I added the salt, sugar, and curing salt to the belly. I put it all in a bag and kept it in the refrigerator. I turned it every day for a week until it was firm. Then I roasted on low until it reached 150° F.

I sliced off the skin and let it cool, then I carefully wrapped it up and put it in the refrigerator to firm up for slicing. A week later, I took the belly to my Italian meat and cheese purveyor at the market and had him slice it on his deli slicer.

Behold, Christmas Bacon!

Busójárás

2011-03-06T11:58:00.006+01:00

This guy is up to mischief

Busójárás is the Mohacs event that signals (or creates?) the end of winter to make way for the coming of spring. It is marked by parades of Busó, large masked creatures, sometimes even wielding weapons who scare off winter.

Parading winter's coffin

He's looking to scare away winter

Parading Busó

More parading Busó

And yet more...

Busó children

Night at the Roxbury anyone?

Franny and the Beast

The Beast and the Beast

This Busó took a little inspiration from Guy Fawkes

Little Boy Busó come blow your horn...

Putting the effigy of winter on the pyre

Silly busó with donut horns

Cel-e-brate good times, c'mon!

Burning man, winter edition

Die, winter, die!

Hardcore busó

Happy dancing busó

Party time!

The Busó are happy

Mischief managed.

Mushrooming!

2010-10-12T11:26:00.012+02:00

Warning for those who have aversions to bugs and critters: There are two pictures of spiders in this post. Beware. :-)

Given the opportunity to go mushrooming with two good friends from Kecskemét I was ecstatic. I've done a bit of hunting in the surrounding area for different mushrooms including different varieties of morels and other locally distinctive mushrooms, but being fall after a lot of rain and then some really good sun it was prime parasol mushroom season! So we headed due east for about 15 km outside of town and arrived to some nice patches of grassy forests.

A patch of parasol mushrooms

Our catch after 5 minutes!

These guys were everywhere and they were doing good business!

Hunting for these mushrooms was a breeze as they were everywhere and almost all in very good condition. We just tried to avoid all of the spider webs which turned our walk through the trees into a maze. Our timing couldn't have been more perfect as we saw only a few over-the-hill mushrooms; most were in their prime!

Known as the "deer leg mushroom" in Hungarian (őzlábgombá) I had no idea why until I actually saw them. Here's a photo composite of the stages of life of this mushroom:

Just sprouted

Getting taller and the cap is developing

This cap is starting to open up

Here's a fully grown parasol. The stem looks like a deer's leg.

This one has dropped it's spores and is over-the-hill

The stem could no longer support the weight of the giant aging cap

A patch in many different stages

The beautiful habitat of the mushrooms, spiders, and deer we saw that day

A rare wasp spider

Here's Peter and Laura enjoying some freshly baked zucchini muffins

A big thank you to Peter and Laura for the invitation to hunt for mushrooms and the wonderful dinner of mushroom soup that followed. Delicious!

The Bread Files: Austria, Part II

2010-08-07T16:14:00.004+02:00

Dinkelweckerl (?) and müsliweckerl

Briochekipferl and weizenweckerl

Nussbrot (?)

A close-up of that gorgeous texture.

Dinner at the Gablerbräu

2010-08-04T18:45:00.000+02:00

After a long day of exploring the city with Franny and friends we found the Gablerbräu, a restaurant for the "everyman," according to its website. I chose a special and unfortunately can't remember the name of the dish. Because it's a special I can't find it online. It bore the name of Salzburg though, and I do remember what was in the dish.

Clockwise from the top: dumpling, blood pudding, bacon, bratwurst, roast pork and sauerkraut.

I was so excited to begin eating that I forgot that I might want to take a picture for the blog before taking a bite. Luckily Franny reminded me before I took more than a bit of the dumpling and pork roast. I think the pork was my favorite part of this dish with its caraway crust and natural tenderness which paired well with everything else on the plate. The blood pudding, which is tucked underneath the dumpling, was delicious and the sauerkraut was so good that Franny took as much "untainted" kraut as she could. Franny's friend Jenny even picked up the check! Thanks Jenny, I loved meeting you and Lindsey!

Kardinalschnitte

2010-08-04T15:02:00.002+02:00

This tasty looking treat was tasty! Made of lots of eggs, a little flour, and some whiskey and cream this was a perfect accompaniment with an afternoon coffee which was a welcome rest breaking up all of the site seeing we had been doing and would do. The texture was crisp and soft at the same time, like eating Tiramisu with meringue. And the added bonus was that it was enjoyed with wonderful friends.

Indoor Picnic

2010-08-03T21:55:00.003+02:00

Olives, pickled artichokes, sun-dried tomatoes, fresh peppers, mozzarella, bergkäse, grapes, pears, wonderfully fresh bread, and some salami for me. This was a perfect indoor picnic to wait for the crazy mountain weather to pass.

The Bread Files: Austria, Part I

2010-08-02T22:01:00.003+02:00

Topfentascherl and Nuβschnecke

Mohnflesserl and Salzstangerl

Croissant and Sesamflesserl

Milchbrot

Lake Wolfgang

2010-08-02T14:33:00.000+02:00

The lake in the morning

The quiet marina

You can almost hear the ivy growing...

Franny takes a dip

St. Gilgen from afar

St. Gilgen up-close

Franny in action

Am I eating the ice cream or am I thinking about it?

Lost in the Woods: a NotPécs Tale Addendum

2010-07-18T14:34:00.005+02:00

Franny wrote a great account of our trip to "NotPécs" and "AlsonotPécs," that is to say the trip that was supposed to be about Pécs but wasn't. Read it here at Franny's Hungary!

Here are a few of the "seeing the upside" pictures.

Wild Strawberries!

Mr. Beetle as compared to my hand.

Mr. Beetle's closeup.

May your summer hikes and walks may be more productive, less scary, and just as lucky as ours!

Chicken Adobo

2010-06-22T10:09:00.003+02:00

When Franny was teaching an English Camp at Lake Balaton I was left to ponder a lazy summer menu for just me. What I came up with was chicken adobo due to its wonderful Filipino flavors which are not available in Hungary and its excellent use of chicken.

Way back when I was working at the Burke Museum in Seattle I met a lot of different people who would visit. And yes I talked food with them too. This recipe is inspired by a nice Filipino couple who told me the secrets of adobo. I don't claim to have it perfectly as it was not written down but here's the recipe I used:

Chicken Adobo

Ingredients

1 kilo of either chicken or pork or a combination of the two
1 head garlic, minced
1/2 yellow onion, diced
1/2 cup soy sauce
1 cup vinegar
2 cups of water
1 teaspoon paprika
3 bay leaves
4 tablespoons of cooking oil
2 tablespoons cornstarch
3 tablespoons water

In a pot or wok, heat 2 tablespoons of oil and sauté the minced garlic and onions. Add the meat to the pan and sear. Add water, soy sauce, vinegar, paprika, and bay leaves. Bring to a boil. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes or until the meat is tender. Mix the browned meat back to the sauce and add cornstarch dissolved in water to thicken and season to taste.

Serve hot with plain rice.

Nachos, deconstructed

2010-06-01T16:40:00.002+02:00

This feast was made fun by keeping all of its elements separate: (from top left-hand corner going counter-clockwise) enchilada sauce (Rick Bayless recipe), homemade nacho sauce, avocado, green onion, Frito-Lay bean dip (thank you Hanna and Alvin), first tomatoes of the summer, good Hungarian sour cream, and of course tortilla chips. The one napkin seen behind the chips is only a token of the many that were used during consumption.

Ramson and Chicken Salad Sandwiches

2010-04-26T10:41:00.005+02:00

Beginning with some fresh medvehagyma that I foraged from Bakonybél I rolled them up and cut them into a chiffonade.

Medvehagyma

To these I added some homemade mayo, salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper to make the base dressing.

Beautiful ribbons

Building the dressing

To the dressing I added a handful of previously roasted chicken that had been in the fridge overnight. I served it on a sesame wheat bread from the 'Corner Bakery.'

Chicken Salad with Style

Medvehagyma 2010!

2010-04-18T10:02:00.013+02:00

Hello all! About this time last year I wrote about a special find in the farmer's market in Mars tér called medvehagyma, bear onions, or ramsons. Well this year I got to go straight to the source and pick them for myself in the national forest near Bakonybél. I went with a group of foragers from Kecskemét who are interested in learning more about gathering food and nutrients from nature.

Is that grass?

Once in Bakonybél we set out to find the park entrance as this was a special day. There were maybe 200 people who came from all parts of Hungary for a chance to pick their own medvehagyma with the blessing of the park service. We hiked something like 8km that afternoon all the while marveling at how nearly every part of the forest floor that didn't have a trail worn into it recently was covered with allium ursinum.

Nope, just bear onions.

The hike was only ever stopped to listen to the park rangers about different plants or animals native to the area or, of course, to pick bear onions, mushrooms, or forest herbs.

They're everywhere!

After the hike we went back to the village where a bear onion feast awaited us. They had infused all known types of Hungarian food with the leafy onion vegetation. We first tried some pálinka that had been infused with medvehagyma, then some soup and salads of the stuff then followed by bread with bear onion pesto or a type of Hungarian quark called túró topped with medvehagyma. There were also pogacsa, little bicsuits, and lángos that had the onions inside. Happily the wine was kept bear onion free! Unfortunately I was so hungry after all of the hiking I didn't even think of taking pictures of all of these different foods until it was all gone.

Droppin' some knowledge.

Finally, after everyone had satiated their hunger and thirst, a woman from the community stood up and spoke about all of the wonderful attributes of medvehagyma along with the other herbs found in the area. They handed out, and I came home with, a sheet of medvehagyma recipes as well as a bag full of the onions that I had collected.

Duck Tales: The Roasty Adventure!

2010-04-05T14:17:00.010+02:00

The Duck

Starting to cut out the backbone

Coming down the other side

Separating the leg and breast sections

The orange brine

Going for a swim

What to do?

Roast to make stock

Mmm!

Chillin'

The opposite of chillin'

Roasting the potatoes in duck fat

Et voila!

Jerky

2010-03-26T13:12:00.005+01:00

Making jerky is like performing magic. By using fresh meat and adding salt and any other seasonings to taste and drying for a few hours a wonderful transformation takes place, alchemy really. This is also the preservation of a chunk of flesh that is changed from a ticking time bomb into a long-lasting treat.

Before...

After!

Limoncello

2010-03-02T13:35:00.004+01:00

The newest batch of Limoncello was a success. This time we made 7 bottles.

Photos courtesy of Franny Finstrom

Funny Face

2010-01-31T16:06:00.000+01:00

I just love oil and vinegar, don't you?

Bubblegum Cocktail

2010-01-26T18:06:00.009+01:00

I recently went to Portland, Oregon for my brother's wedding and to visit my family. I brought back a suitcase of foods that are usually common for me, but rare in Hungary. Most of what I brought back was everyday cheap pantry items like molasses and nori, and Tamari (OK, not so common, but it IS cheap and very available). One of the sought after items, something that wasn't found until the night before getting on the plane back to Hungary, was Double Bubble. Thanks to my mom's efforts and her driving to something like twelve different stores I have some good 'ol fashioned American bubble gum. I remember getting big buckets of it from the store as a kid. She has since notified me that Albertson's down the street, which of course she checked, started carrying it a couple of days ago.

Double Bubble cut in half in a jar. photo by Franny Finstrom

Sometimes I just scour the internet for new ideas and inspiration and during one of those hunts I found a recipe and video for bubblegum cocktails. Those of you who read this blog will remember my limoncello post and know the magic of soaking something is vodka. Some of my friends to the north, in Budapest, turned that magic to jellybeans. Well it was high time that I put some vodka to bubblegum to see what would happen.

Bubblegum immediately after vodka was added. photo by Franny Finstrom

This was left for 24 hours being shaken up every 6 hours or so. It was then filtered and left in the pantry to await the transformation to cocktail. The smell was incredible! The strongest bubblegum flavor to ever waft from a jar I've known.

Filtered bubblegum infusion. photo by Franny Finstrom

Once shaken with some sweet & sour and some egg this vodka is turned into a classy drink.

Bubblegum Cocktail

Bazooka Bubblegum Cocktail

by Eben Freeman, of Tailor Restaurant in New York City

Ingredients:

16 pieces bubblegum, preferably Double Bubble, cut in half
2 cups (16 ounces) vodka
1 tablespoon (1/2 ounce) freshly squeezed lemon juice (from ½ lemon)
1 tablespoon (1/2 ounce) freshly squeezed lime juice (from ½ lime)
1 tablespoon (1/2 ounce) simple syrup
1/2 egg white* or 1 tablespoon pasteurized liquid egg whites (optional)
1 cup ice

*The egg white in this recipe is not cooked. If there is a problem with salmonella in your area omit the egg white or use pasteurized egg whites.

Preparation:

In a large airtight container, combine bubblegum and vodka. Seal and allow to infuse, stirring every 6 hours, for 24 hours. Pour vodka through fine mesh strainer, discarding bubble gum.

In cocktail shaker, stir together 2 ounces bubblegum-infused vodka, lemon juice, lime juice, simple syrup, and egg white if using. Add ice and shake vigorously for 20 seconds. Strain into a chilled coupe glass.

Take a bite out of the new year!

2010-01-03T17:44:00.009+01:00

In Hungary pigs are so popular that it is good luck to eat a whole one for good luck on New Year's Day. No, not Wilbur! Nope. Not Wilbur indeed. This one is made from walnuts and wafer cookies and glued together with caramel. This kind of confection is called grillázs in Hungarian and it is tasty.

This guy is decked out for the new year with 2010 on one side...

And Buék on the other. Buék is short for "Boldog Új Évet!" which means Happy New Year. This is one festive pig, but is it delicious?

.....

Yes! Caramelized walnuts and wafers with some frosting on top is in fact delicious and fun all at the same time.

Here's looking forward to the new year.

Gomba Paprikás

2009-11-13T16:56:00.005+01:00

This is one of our favorites! It's a mushroom stew with plenty of paprika and sour cream served over Hungarian dumplings called nokedli. Below is the recipe for chicken paprikás that is easily adapted for mushroom paprikás. Consider it a bonus post!

Chicken/Mushroom Paprikás

Ingredients:
2 Tbs oil
2 large onions, chopped
1 1/2 t salt
2-3 Tbs paprika
½ cup water
1-2 tomatoes, chopped
2 lbs chicken pieces or mushrooms
1 banana pepper, sliced into rings
2 Tbs sour cream, plus more for garnish
1-2 Tbs flour

Method:

In a large pot sweat onions in oil with a pinch of salt. When onions are soft take the pot of the heat and add the paprika and stir around before adding water and tomatoes. Add chicken pieces and simmer with the lid on for about 30 minutes. (If making with mushrooms add them and saute until brown then proceed with recipe.) When the chicken is cooked, add the pepper slices and simmer for another 10 minutes. Take out chicken pieces and stir together sour cream and flour adding the mixture to the sauce. Serve chicken topped with the sauce next to nokedli and plenty of sour cream to garnish

Nokedli

Ingredients:
2 eggs
2 tsp salt
¾ cup water
3 cups flour

Method:

Whisk egg, salt, and water together until thin. Slowly add flour and mix until a thick batter forms. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil and place nokedli maker* across the top. Push the batter through the grates and into boiling salted water. Simmer until they rise to the top. Drain and serve hot.

Makes approximately 4 servings

Cook’s Note: For two people sharing paprikás over two nights, make a half batch of nokedli the first night and another half the second night.

*This tool looks like a large holed cheese grater and is used to make nokedli or spaetzle.

Great Post!

2009-11-01T19:05:00.002+01:00

Anyone not familiar with Anna's (and sometimes Burke's) blog Hodge Vodge/Hogy Vagy please check out their latest adventure. They just got back from a wonderful vacation to Slovenia. Most notably they experienced wonderful European hospitality and artisanal craftsmanship!

I urge you to read this!

Pumpkin Ravioli

2009-10-26T13:24:00.008+01:00

We chose this as the menu because of the fall-themed party that included pumpkin carving. We didn't, however, use the jack-o-lantern scraps. We chose a variety that smells like candy and brown sugar, almost like an instant pumpkin pie upon cutting the squash open. It was a wonderful sensation. The color is much like that of the eggs we get here, a very deep yellow/orange that is truly beautiful.

Delicious fall squash.

After slicing the two halves up I placed them on my Silpat and roasted them in the oven for about an hour each (there were two batches). Though this step was not pictured and that's a shame because there were pools of caramelized juices on the Silpat that were wonderful to behold as well as taste. Then everything went into the food mill, the glorious food mill. While I was spending about five minutes to turn the squash into a tasty purée I reflected on the hour and a half or so it took me last year to use a spoon and sieve to do the same job. I relished this fact though the palm of my hand started to hurt in memory of the spoon digging into it for an hour and a half last year.

Hurrah for foodmills!

This purée was wonderfully cooked and was very complex for being squash simply roasted. Because it was quite moist and wasn't planning on roasting the slices for a long time I decided against adding even butter or oil to them. Though this would have added more flavor I was very happy with my nearly instant pumpkin pie filling. Now if I can just find a damn pie tin...

Freshly pureed pumpkin.

Once the filling was finished with some cinamon, freshly grated nutmeg, turo, brown sugar, and salt. Franny and I rolled out the pasta. Quickly dropping down tablespoons of pumpkin filling we sealed them and cut them in no time at all. We cooked them in batches of five then put them in the frying pan with browned ghee and sage. Happily the sage was from our very own plant!

Pumpkin ravioli in the brown butter bath.

To finish plating we grated some fresh Parmigiana Reggiano.

Plated ravioli

Yum!

We finished dinner with a fresh dessert of Apple Crisp that Franny quickly whipped up. It was a family recipe and absolutely delicious!

If a pumpkin grows in Hungary does anyone carve it?

2009-10-26T13:13:00.002+01:00

Meditating over this question we invited Emily and Tomi over to take part in our fall festival. It was lots of fun and included roasting pumpkin seeds and making pumpkin ravioli (but that's another post). I think Emily and Tomi had a lot of fun; we sure did!

The three stooges.

Franny and I carried these pumpkins home by hand, along with our usual market list of groceries. It was hard work, but so worth it for the reward of fresh pumpkin seeds and friends wielding knives and smiling!

The three stooges when lit.

Zucchini Soup

2009-10-05T11:57:00.002+02:00

It's really hard to figure out where to begin. I'm not even sure where the beginning is so it's hard to start there. So after some reflection I found a picture of zucchini soup that I made on a few occasions this summer and absolutely loved! It became the defining soup of the summer because of the perfectly fresh and small zucchini I could find at the farmer's market that allowed me to step back from the recipe and let the vegetable do all the work. This soup, plenty of bread, and an ice-cold glass of homemade hibiscus tea (jamaica) became one of the most comforting meals of the season. Enjoy!

Zucchini Soup

1 kilo zucchini, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
Olive oil
4 cups vegetable broth
salt and pepper

Saute the onion and zucchini until they begin to brown. Be sure to use plenty of salt to season the vegetables during the saute. Add broth and pepper, adding more salt to taste. Cook until tender, about 10 minutes then put the stick blender to it. Serve with dumplings or simply with bread.

Guest Appearance

2009-09-27T19:49:00.003+02:00

Hey all,

I still don't have internet, but I do have my laptop back. Check out my friend's blog with my first blog post in a long time! Can't wait to get back to writing about Hungary, food, and crazy fanny packs.

Check it out here.

Best,

Jon

Watermelon Granita

2009-06-22T21:35:00.002+02:00

Hey folks! Sorry for not writing for so long, but I assure you that as busy as things have been lately I'm just collecting stories for a backlog of posts. But until I get to them, I have to move first, here's watermelon granita. Enjoy!

Franny and I went to the market this weekend and bought a quarter of a watermelon. It's been really hot in the south of Hungary, and dry, though I was surprised to see watermelon in June. There weren't just a couple either, there were more than 5 stands dedicated to watermelons or a combination of watermelon and other melons. So we dove in and bought a quarter of one to take home. It was good too, but not amazing, so we made other plans for it. I cut chunks of it into thin slices and Franny, using a strainer and a spoon, pressed all of the juice out of the fruit. We then strained it one last time, added a pinch of salt and sugar and poured all of the collected juice into a 9x13x2 baking pan. Placing the baking dish in the freezer I checked up on it every so often and scraped the ice as it formed to create large flat watermelon crystals of goodness. Serving suggestion above.

Gooseberry Fool

2009-06-12T12:07:00.003+02:00

This will most likely be the last post for a week or so depending on access to internet. I am in the process of moving to Kecskemét. I have already tried to get an internet connection order in the works, but nothing is simple in Hungary. Until I have a good connection or until I find a wireless connection blogging will be difficult.

Anyway, gooseberry season has come and gone in Szeged and I caught some right at the beginning. They are beautiful berries that are plump, firm, and tart.

I trimmed and cleaned the berries.

Then I added some sugar to them to cook down.

Once they were cooked I strained them into a purée.

A close-up of the purée in a jar.

Using equal amounts of gooseberry purée and whipping cream make whipped cream and then fold the two together to make a gooseberry fool. This dessert, once chilled has a smooth luxurious texture and a good balance of sweet and tart. The origin is British, hence the name... just kidding. Enjoy!

The Gooseberry Fool.

Vote Now!

2009-06-04T07:54:00.001+02:00

I'm a finalist in a culinate.com blog contest. Of course you should simply choose your favorite author.

The Milk Lady

2009-05-27T18:48:00.002+02:00

A photo of the Hungarian Red Cow: Magyar Tarka

I have what can only be explained as an Oregonian's natural love of the outdoors. Maybe that's why I never fully explored the two modern buildings that make up a part of my farmer's market in Szeged, Hungary. Keep in mind that even in the winter, the outdoor portion fills about 100 tables. You can imagine how full it is these days now that spring is yielding it's fruits (and vegetables). So it is, perhaps, forgivable to have overlooked these two extra buildings across the way. After all, when I did peak in one of them before all I saw were shoes and clothes and those are not good eats.

This particular market, Mars tér, is open every day of the week. Whenever I go there I love to browse the stalls and see what new items have arrived since the previous visit. Right now there is a lot happening: strawberries have arrived and are being sold by the tray full, green peas followed, now there are even cherries! I've spent a lot of time there learning the names of the fruits, vegetables, herbs, and getting the feel for how things work. I thought I had everything figured out after getting acquainted with the two major purveyors of sauerkraut and other pickled goodies, but during this time I had been lacking something.

Despite my fresh eggs, duck, vegetables, fruits, handmade pastas, and garlands of paprika and garlic, I was missing cheese, a lot. A couple of months ago I was craving some sharp Tillamook cheddar, and I couldn't find a good source of cheese anywhere. I did eventually find a cheese shop that imports Dutch cheeses that also has a small selection of French and Italian cheeses, but I was left wondering how this was enough for Szeged. All I could ever find in the super and hyper markets were mass-produced, imported cheeses. Where were the good imports? And where was Hungary's contribution? "There are great hand-made cheeses," one of my Hungarian colleagues told me, "you simply have to go out to the countryside and get them from the dairy farms." Well, that was a good tip, but it still didn't solve the mystery of what the 170,000+ people in the city of Szeged did to find good cheese. Did they really all head out to the country?

It wasn't until I was recently invited to lunch at another colleagues home that the subject of cheese came up and I got my answer. She told me that I could buy it from the cheese lady in the Mars tér farmer's market. It was under my nose the whole time?! "You can find her in one of the modern buildings that are a part of the market," she said. Was the cheese lady tucked away behind some shoes?! Clearly, it was time to take another look at those buildings.

Well, suffice to say, finding the cheese lady was this week's all-important mission. And find her I did. Of the two brick buildings, only one is filled with clothes and shoes, the other has stalls for baked goods, various other food stalls, and the Tejpiac, the milk market. She was all alone the first day, last Wednesday, dressed in a white apron embroidered with colorful tulips in the Kalocsai motif, her eyes wrinkled and happy, and her hands showing the signs of years of hard work. I knew I was in the right place. Before her were displayed various hand-made cheeses that I tasted: two kinds of sheep's milk túró, cow's milk túró, and a soft-rind cow's milk cheese that was lightly smoked and similar to Gouda. ("Túró," Hungarian for "curd," is a fresh cheese that is a kind of quark, similar to fromage frais.) I also wanted butter but she had already sold out. So I left with a wedge of the Gouda-like cheese, and was told to return the next day.

I arrived earlier the next day to the milk market and saw that there were five other women working there too. But even amongst other choises I felt a loyalty to the woman I had met the day before. Maybe it was because she reminds me of my grandmother, or because she ends each transaction with, "Minden jót!" a wish for everything to be good for you, or maybe it was the trust I had in her from seeing her knowledge and experience reflected in her eyes and her hands. I decided to buy some of the sheep's milk túró and noticed that she was selling milk by the liter. I was interested in learning more. I began to ask questions such as, "Where is the milk from?", "What kind of cow", "Is it pasteurized?", and "How long is it good for?" She proudly told me that the milk comes from a village about 15 kilometers outside Szeged called Forraskut, that the milk is raw and comes from a Hungarian breed, and that it would stay fresh for about three days. I decided to buy a liter even though I was still a little hesitant about it being raw milk. On top of that while I've come to expect surprises here, I was still a bit shocked at the sight sight of a used water bottle becoming my fresh milk container. I was also struck at the price! A liter of milk from her costs 120 HUF/liter whereas it costs closer to 200 HUF from the grocery store.

Walking home from the milk market I basked both in the sunshine of the warm afternoon and in my pride of having successfully obtained new products and new information using only Hungarian, at least pseudo Hungarian anyway. At that moment I realized that although I had sought her out for some fresh homemade cheese, she was a source of all kinds of fresh dairy products. She wasn't simply a cheese lady, she worked with real, fresh milk and used her skill to create many different products. I returned again on Friday to have another crack at getting some butter. She had some, and it was formed in a little wheel! Naturally when Franny was in town on Saturday, I had to take her to see the cheese lady and share in the glorious discovery of the milk market. We left with more butter, some cream and another liter of milk. This time, though, I brought a Nalgene bottle to tote the milk home.

The taste of the milk is difficult to describe. It has a smell that tells you that it came from a cow, and the feel of it on the tongue is heavy. It has a natural sweetness that's different than the pasteurized milk that most of us are used to. The butter is unbelievably sweet and creamy tasting more like whipped cream than butter. The túró has a taste similar to that of feta, but is spreadable. I'm very happy to have finally found this source of good dairy and am excited to put it to good use.

Limoncello update!

2009-05-25T20:54:00.002+02:00

It's finished! After a long wait the limoncello is finished and has been bottled under a very handsome label and bottle design by Franny. Enjoy!

Such an odd playground...

2009-05-14T22:20:00.010+02:00

Forever ago, back in the Spring when the weather was cooler and I still lived in Szeged one of my friends (hi Briggi!!!) came to visit Franny and myself for a weekend of shopping, eating, and walking (a lot!). We did really awesome things like go to the Pick Szeged factory museum, go to the Mars tér market, and make amazing meals (duck confit over a spinach salad with a glorious bottle of Kohari Cuvee anyone?). This playground that very well may have been designed by Tim Burton was a definite highlight as well.

The playground equipment was installed on the bias, an odd angle so the "scary-go-round" was tilted sideways. Now that I think of it though, the swings were level and pretty normal. Please enjoy the picture and video of children using this equipment. One of the kids actually uses it in a hamster-like fashion which I find entertaining. Maybe the U.S needs more of these things.

I love that the kid is flying off of this thing!

Pita and Hummus

2009-05-14T21:46:00.004+02:00

My apologies for falling behind in my blogging. I have some catching up to do. A couple of weeks ago, the end of April, Franny and I couldn't live without pita anymore so we made it ourselves. I searched for some recipes and took a little from different ones to create the one that we used.

The dough after the first rise.

After letting the dough (flour, salt, yeast and sugar, and water) rise Franny made 8 or 9 piles of dough so that they could rest and rise a little longer before rolling them out.

Has anyone ever left you a pile of dough?

Franny skillfully rolled the little dough balls out, without a rolling pin no less.

How does she do that without a rolling pin?

Then we baked them in a very hot oven to near perfection. Note: it's not a great oven.

Yum! Warm pita!

We also made a fresh batch of hummus from scratch to go with our warm pita bread! We served our homemade food with a nice veggie platter and made some delicious sandwiches.

Is it just me or are those vegetables happy?

Ramsons + Mayonnaise + Tuna

2009-04-29T20:49:00.002+02:00

I decided to whip up a fresh batch of mayonnaise tonight and am supremely happy I did! Earlier tonight I cut a few slices of Erdélyi Szalonna and toasted some thin slices of bread in the remaining fat because it was so clear and pure I had to do something with it. With the last little bit of the melted fat and the waning bit of heat in the pan I added the last of my fresh ramsons, chopped, and tossed to coat. I then added this to some mayonnaise, tuna, cayenne pepper, and some black pepper. The tang of the fresh mayonnaise with a little extra lemon juice with the garlic-onion taste of the ramsons with the fresh tasting tuna this is a very light and flavorful treat. A very happy meal indeed!

Medvehagyma

2009-04-28T18:39:00.016+02:00

Bear onions? Why would these be called bear onions? I turned to my usual methods for sleuthing items from the farmer's market that I don't recognize. I start with the Hungarian name and try to find a reference on the internet with a scientific name; then I use that scientific name to search for the English handle. In this instance medvehagyma, a word I can translate with my very limited Hungarian to "bear onions," turned into allium ursinum. This translates to ramsons, or wild garlic, or bear's garlic. According to Wikipedia, it is a close relative of the chive, and I can smell the resemblance! So what do bears have to do with these leaves that look like they were stripped from a Lilly of the valley? Again according to Wikipedia, brown bears love to dig up the bulbs in the spring when both the plant and animal come out of hibernation.

The bulbs spring forth with the water and sunshine and so do the bears in need of some good fresh nutrients, and what easier plant to find than one that you just need to follow your nose to! And why not? We all know garlic is good for us, and there are studies and articles (here and here) to back this up. Bear's garlic, like most or all varieties, contains sulfur compounds (divinyl sulfide, dimethyl thiosulfonate, methyl cystein sulfoxide and the latter’s degradation products: methyl allyl thiosulfonate and methanethiol). It was only upon looking up these compounds that I learned what the plant really does for our health. All of those sulfur compounds relax blood vessels and may fight chances of developing various cancers. When preparing garlic and garlic varieties be sure to chop, mince, or crush your garlic at least 10 minutes before cooking it. According to said studies and articles that time is needed to produce the enzymes to do all of this good work. And it's yet another reason to complete your mise en place!

After I got them home and washed them I noticed the smell had dissipated. If one is worried he or she might be eating a Lilly of the valley instead of ramsons, don't panic; simply rub the leaf. If you smell garlic, you're at the right plant! According to a few sources, including Spice Pages, there are no other species that look like allium ursinum that have any hint of garlic as part of their profile, but always be careful when foraging. For my North American readers there are many celebrated relatives of ramsons (including ramps!), but I have found no evidence that ramsons grow in your backyard, unless of course they hitched a ride as good plant species often find ways of doing.

When I first tasted it by itself I was welcomed with a fresh garlic taste and a crisp texture similar to fresh romaine lettuce. Ramsons can be eaten as part of a salad or make up an entire salad on its own; the flowers and bulb may be eaten as well. I found the flavor of flowers to be even stronger than the leaves. As I continued my research on this plant I found numerous allusions to eating the plant leaves as fresh as possible because the perfume will fill the kitchen and not the food when cooked too much. Think about stirring some chopped leaves into a just finished potato cream soup and letting the heat soften them. As a pesto it has a dominant "green" flavor with only a little bit of a spicy edge. Yum!

Happy "bear" hunting!

Tri-color Fettucine

2009-04-27T17:42:00.009+02:00

What's in pasta that's so magical? I find myself making so much of it these days, and not apologetically I might add. Like most dishes I make these days I have some sort of spark, some inspiration brought about by research or craving, lead the way; this was no different. I set out to make a no fuss dinner, but left to my own devices I do a little more without making things too difficult (I think).

This bowl was full of greens that were cooked down to the size of a golf ball.

It all started with some sorrel greens from the farmer's market. It was being held for salads, which is what I think I was going to make when the spark hit me. I had filled the salad spinner up with luscious greens but after rinsing them I decided to plunge them into boiling salted water instead of dressing them. I made a simple pasta dough and I was off. I strained, shocked, spun, and squeezed the sorrel until it was the size of a golf-ball. I then minced it and kneaded it into one-third of the pasta dough I had whipped up.

But making some green pasta wasn't good enough, I had done it once before and now I had white and green pasta. So I had to go for the "red gold" and knead some paprika into the last third leaving me with three colors!

This is when I recruited Franny for our rolling and cutting routine:

Once the sorrel pasta was rolled out we knew we had something great.

After the paprika pasta was rolled out we knew we had hit a home run!

Kapow!

I've really been happy with all of the fresh pasta made with fresh market eggs, Kalocsai flour, and some sea salt, but the colors blew me away! It was absolutely delicious and a marvel to look at, it almost made the dish difficult to eat, but then again it took me less time than the average bowl of pasta....go figure!

Share our Strength

2009-04-13T17:22:00.004+02:00

Michael Ruhlman has just published a new book, Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking! If you are interested in not simply purchasing cookbooks but investing in a little more knowledge it looks like this book is for you. Ratio can simply be purchased on Amazon.com, but if you want a chance to donate to a good cause, Share Our Strength to fight children's hunger, and in the process earn a chance at winning a personalized and signed copy of Mr. Ruhlman's new book along with a brand new scale to put those ratios to use, well you'd not only be doing yourself a solid, but starving children as well! Good Luck!

Panna Cotta

2009-04-12T17:55:00.000+02:00

This devine dessert has in the back of my mind since I lived in Rome.

Caramel Panna Cotta.

With Spring finally sprung I have been craving so many things light and fresh as well as being able to fully enjoy something best served cold. That's why I made three variations of this classic dessert. The above was made with a simple caramel that I whipped up and put in the bottoms of some tea cups. (It's funny what you do when you need to improvise just about your entire kitchen whenever you want to make something new.)

Blueberry Panna Cotta.

I worked for about an hour working some frozen blueberries into a syrup, then cooking it further into a reduction, and finally straining out the pure blueberry essence that eventually crowned the tops of the blueberry panna cotta. The color contrast was as beautiful as the taste. Just as an aside: there was a little bit of the blueberry reduction sauce left that perfectly topped a creamy batch of tejbegriz. I love making variations on a theme, something I've really enjoyed experimenting with here.

I also made an espresso batch of panna cotta, it was beautiful too, but alas, it was all gone before I could snap any pictures of it. I guess I'll just have to make it again.

Limoncello: Liquid Sunshine

2009-04-08T15:23:00.005+02:00

Just a quick post to show the beginning of my newest project: Limoncello. This drink captures the magic of lemons in alcohol form by extracting the essential oils from the zest of lemons. In about a month I'll post back with the results of the final product and bottling. Until then, enjoy the sunshine in its non-liquid form!

Duck Tales: The Horror...The Tasty Horror!

2009-03-24T18:49:00.010+01:00

I entertained both Briggi and Franny in Szeged last weekend. We cooked and ate wonderful dinners, had lots of farmer's market and flower shopping time, explored the city, and took a trip to the Pick Szeged Factory museum.

Friday night we had Japanese curry with roasted eggplant, rice, and pickles. Saturday afternoon after a long stroll in the market I decided to share my duck confit with Briggi so I dug it out of the fat and roasted it in the oven.

I served it on top of spinach salads simply dressed with lemon juice, a little salt, red onions, and some of the Mangalica fat that cooked off of the duck. The smell, texture, and flavor of the duck was amazing! It was so fragrant, tender, succulent, and earthy. The skin alone was some transcendent form of bacon. The Mangalica lard was a perfect choice for cooking the duck in. We paired the lunch with a fantastic Egri Cuvée (a gift from Briggi) that was dry and fruity. It complimented the duck and salads perfectly.

We all had salads of spinach, freshly pickled radishes, beets and red onions. It was a celebration of spring! A funny sidenote about the red onion: I wanted two medium onions and the guy at the stall gave them to me for free! I left 50 HUF behind anyway.

That night we had a ratatouille of radish greens, tomatoes, zucchini, and mushrooms. That was served along side a fresh orchiette pasta with butter sauce and basil. We all enjoyed making the orchiette by hand. It was a perfect dinner after walking all around Szeged that whole day. Briggi, thank you again for visiting I hope you had a great time!

Comfort Food: Lasagna

2009-03-24T15:36:00.012+01:00

When I had to make a special dinner last night what came to mind? Lasagna...hmmm, fresh pasta lasagna...hmmm, a tri-color fresh pasta lasagna, that’s it!

I have a basil plant and it has a name: Rupert Basilbear. (You can blame Franny for the last name, and yes, I feel like a dork.) Anyway, I harvested some fresh basil and added it to a very large portion of some market spinach, which I bought a 1/2 kilo of on Saturday and am scrambling to eat. After blanching the spinach in salted water I added it to the basil, garlic, salt, and some olive oil and blended it until I had a spinach pesto. Green? Done.

For the color white I chose to count the fresh pasta which was a 1/3 all-purpose flour (finomliszt for those of you who are keeping track of the Hungarian) and 2/3 durum mixture. Included with this layer is the cheese mixture, for which I caramelized one large onion with crushed red pepper and after chilling it to room temperature I added 250g of ricotta, and 200 grams of finely chopped mozzarella and mixed it thoroughly. White layer? Check!

Last up: red team. Now I almost went with tomatoes for this one, but there aren’t any in season of course. I could have chosen some canned sauce, but resolved to wait until summer (when I will down a kilo of fresh tomatoes a day) to draft tomatoes onto this team. I decided to try something new, but stay within cold weather traditions. I started with a base of cream and butter for the sauce and added fresh paprika until I had a bright red cream sauce ready to complete the tri-color. As expected it tasted like roasted peppers....delicious!

To assemble: I started with paprika cream sauce, laid down pasta sheets, put some caramelized onion cheese mixture on top of that, and finished the pattern with spinach pesto. I built up a five layer lasagna and put it into a 175 C oven for about 40 minutes and cooked it to perfection. All of the flavors worked together really well. The salty caramelized cheese mixture was balanced by the roasted pepper sauce, which was put in check by the fresh green taste of the spinach pesto, and to hold it all together the pasta sheets were chewy and delicious.

I was really happy about this dish for a couple of reasons: 1) the prep work (pesto making, onion cooking, cheese mixing, sauce making, and pasta kneading) took an hour and a half, which was good quality me time, 2) I had Franny to help roll out the pasta sheets by hand (the pasta machine is in Kalocsa) and help with the assembly, and 3) olive oil being the only exception, all the ingredients came from the market or are local. The eggs, garlic, spinach, and even the paprika came from farmer’s markets while the cream, butter, flour, salt, and basil all came from Hungary. Buon Appetito!

Comfort Food: Confit de Canard part deux

2009-03-21T20:24:00.013+01:00

We'll be right back but first, a word from our sponsor:

So the Pick brand Mangalica lard that sells for 998 HUF/Kg at Spar, but I bought it from the market stall in Mars tér from the Pick Szeged stand and got it at 780 HUF/Kg. Not only is it cheap but couldn't be whiter or firmer. What a deal! Now back to your regularly scheduled program...

This is the duck after cooking in a 75°C oven for ~4 hours.

I've made the pork confit recipe from Charcuterie and that was excellent, so I'm hoping that this is just as good if not better. I'm also getting ahead of myself, but I've already begun thinking about Mangalica pork belly confit with a paprika cure!

The duck in hibernation.

The duck was covered, but a little too thinly on top due to an uneven surface in the refrigerator, so I had to redistribute a little bit of fat, but otherwise this worked out great. I'm hoping that I can hold out from eating it for at least a week while it ripens...we'll see. More to come!

Comfort Food: Confit de Canard part 1

2009-03-21T17:07:00.010+01:00

Every so often I'm reminded of the irony of moving to Hungary after having just bought my copy of Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn's Charcuterie and having to leave it behind because of the weight restrictions on baggage. Secretly I was hoping that spending hours scanning the pages with my eyes would have actually scanned them into my brain, but the files are corrupted and I only remember garbled bits and pieces. But I'm not going to allow that to slow down my research in charcuterie, at least not too much.

Thanks to some recent posts by Michael, and his updated recipe which I'm tweaking a bit, I have finally bought a duck leg, kacsa comb (kocha-stomb), and intend to make duck confit. So here's what the procedure is going to look like: I'm going to cover it in a cure of salt and spices such as cloves, garlic, bay leaf, and pepper and put it in the refrigerator for a day or two. After that time I will rinse it off, dry it, and submerge it entirely in fat and cook it for several hours afterwards allowing it to cool off before putting it in the fridge to cure. It's really simple, really.

I think the chosen fat will be Mangalica lard for two simple reasons 1) I want to experiment with it, and 2) I don't have the money for duck fat. As odd as it sounds the extremely luxurious Mangalica lard only costs me a couple of bucks which makes it more affordable than even olive oil, that's just good for me, and the duck. From what I've heard about Mangalica lard is that if it comes from the highest quality pig it will be neutral enough to cook the duck in. I'll find out in a couple of days. Until then I leave you with this picture of the the curing duck's leg. Don't worry though, I'll move it to the refrigerator.

Hús: 101

2009-03-21T16:19:00.027+01:00

I began writing this as a post on duck confit, but looking back at the title now that I've written most of the following post I realized that I had to finish this post first. I'll retitle it of course.

I finally ventured to expand my Hungarian vocabulary by learning butchery terms. I thought I had adequate knowledge before arriving in Hungary to be able to point at a piece of meat and guess what kind of cut it is and what part of the animal it is from. The only problem is, and I knew this coming here, that although some cuts may be cross-cultural, many are not; so the cut may look familiar, but don't really know what it is. Even if it is labeled, though most of what I've seen is very poorly labeled, some words are easily translatable because it refers to a body part like leg, thigh, neck, or liver. The real problem begins when knew terms are used that either refer to a style, city, or simply is a word I haven't learned yet.

Below are some terms I've been working on. Thanks to www.chew.hu I've been able to easily look up terms, but the organization is lackluster and doesn't aid direct referece for a specifc animal. I must stress that this is all a work in progress and most likely has many errors and misunderstandings on my part. With that in mind, and taking this all with a grain of salt (I couldn't resist), I give you hús (meat)!

First the easy stuff: marha means beef, sertés means pork, baromfi means poultry which can refer to many different birds but the most common are- kacsa which means duck, csirke which means chicken, and pulyka which means turkey. Bárány refers to lamb, while juh refers to mutton.

OK, now that we know some animals the cuts are the next stop on the express train of Hungarian culinary knowledge: the Paprika Express. Some cuts refer to the same part of many different animals, one such example is mel which means breast. Still others only refer to only one animal. For example csülök refers to the leg cut of pig and translates to knuckle, whereas lábszár means the same thing but refers to beef.

Speaking of the cow: Beef

Bélszín-tenderloin
Szűzérmek-tenderloin medallions
Lapocka-blade or shoulder, good for gulyás
Fehérpecsenye-eye of round
Hátszín-round or rump
Nyak-neck
Rostélyos/magas hátszín-ribeye
Belsőségek/zúza-offal/innards/variety meats
Fartő-rump
Borda-ribs
Csontvelő-bone marrow, called velős csont if it's still in the bone
Felsál-tip/rump
Lapos hátszín-short loin or strip loin
Szegy-brisket/breast

The All-Holy Pig:

Csülök-knuckle
Lapocka-blade or shoulder, good for gulyás
Sonka-ham
Tarja-neck
Belsőségek/zúza-offal/innards/variety meats
Fartő-rump
Borda-ribs
Comb-leg
Frikandó-leg round
Oldalas-rack of ribs
Pecsenye-schnitzel, generically any thin slice of meat for breading and frying
Szűzérmek-tenderloin medallions

Poultry:

Fartő-rump
Mel-breast
Comb-leg/thigh
Bontott csirke-gutted chicken for roasting
Belsőségek/zúza-offal/innards/variety meats

Lamb

Gerinc-literally spine this connotes the tender cuts of lamb
Szegy-brisket/breast
Belsőségek/zúza-offal/innards/variety meats

Who Knows?

Gyíkhús-lizard meat: this is unidentifiable and low grade meat, yum!
Belsőségek/zúza-offal/innards/variety meats
Máj-liver
Velőrózsa/velő-brains

Comfort Food: Caramel!

2009-03-19T16:55:00.009+01:00

One of the points of culinary culture shock has been the complete absence of corn syrup. While not an ingredient I enjoy at all because of where it comes from and what it represents, it is an important tool in the candy making arsenal, certainly for caramel. Out of necessity I’ve created my own technique for ensuring a caramel that does not become grainy without the insurance of corn syrup. I’ve also developed some different recipes in the process.

Beautiful AND delicious!

This process started last fall, October to be exact, when I wanted to make caramel apples. I’d made caramel many times before, while in Portland, but I had resources there that I don’t have in Hungary: a cast iron skillet to use as a heat diffuser, a thermometer, and corn syrup. The attempt failed horribly not only had the sugar, butter, and cream combination become grainy as it set up on the apples, but it hadn’t reached the proper temperature either and it simply sloughed off the apples. A couple of days later I tried again getting the temperature more or less right, again just using my eyes, nose, and intuition, but it still came out grainy, and harder than I liked, I called them toffee apples.

Caramel with Murray River salt from Australia.

I didn’t try again until December when I wanted to make caramels for my colleagues and my Christmas hosts. But this time I had my Polder probe thermometer at my side as it had been sent in a package in December! The caramel turned out perfectly and I thought I had my recipe figured out. I had thought that I could make caramel at any time now that I had mastered the art of caramel making in Hungary. That was until yesterday…the problem resurfaced when I tried to make caramel for Franny to take to her family in Germany: it became grainy and disgusting, what’s more is that I had topped it with some Hawaiian black salt, what a loss!

Caramel with Hiwa Kai-Hawaii Black salt.

Determined not to lose this battle I added more water to my recipe and decided to create a syrup first. Then transferring the syrup to a clean pan was the only way to ensure an absolute lack of seed crystals waiting on the sides of my cooking vessel waiting to ruin my caramel. I then finished caramelizing the sugar inside the new pan insuring that any stray crystals were dissolved before adding the cream, butter, and salt mixture. This has worked as I’ve now made two beautiful batches of caramel, one batch of regular and a harder chocolate caramel.

Josef's variation: chocolate with Fleur de Sel!

Comfort Food: Brussels Sprouts

2009-03-10T16:39:00.004+01:00

I made this dish on February 24th and meant to blog it long ago but forgot.

The inspiration for this dish comes from Franny's mom who made something very similar. Shopping at the farmer's markets in Kalocsa and Szeged I saw brussels sprouts in both cities. It was time to grab some and experiment.

This dish is easy. I washed and sliced the sprouts in half and cut the carrots on the bias. Heat up a pan with some oil then saute the vegetables adding salt and butter until the sprouts are browned. Then add pepper, honey, orange juice, and Parmesan cheese. Cook, pushing the vegetables aside, until the liquid becomes a syrup. Serve with more cheese.

Comfort Food: Mayonnaise!

2009-03-10T14:50:00.001+01:00

For many who follow my blog you get it, I like food. So here is a useful culinary tool that has a million uses, you probably have one in your refrigerator right now: the egg. I try to get mine at the Mars tér farmer's market so that they are fresh. One other trait I love about the eggs I've gotten in Hungary is the color: a yellow so deep it's orange.

With an egg at the ready many sauces are at your fingertips, not the least being mayonnaise. One lonely egg yolk, a few drops of water, a pinch of salt, and a touch of lemon juice are the beginning of the emulsion process. Once they are all worked together it will look like this:

Once this has happened adding one drop of oil, sunflower of course, at a time while whisking will start the emulsion. By slowly adding the entire quantity, about a cup per egg yolk, mayonnaise will form before your eyes.

Of course once you have mayonnaise it can be used as a base for other sauces or dressings, or be paired with some leftover meat like chicken or fish. My target was a can of tuna fish sent to me from home. Tuna fish sandwiches are a childhood favorite of mine, but oddly enough this was contradictory of the fact that I hated mayonnaise as a kid. In fact I still do, because I don't have a taste for most mayonnaise on the market, but now that I make my own I don't worry about that anymore.

Chestnut Puree with Coconut Whipped Cream

2009-03-09T16:07:00.000+01:00

A personal dessert favorite ever since introduction by my host teacher Trixi. Chestnut puree topped with whipped cream is the Hungarian equivalent of America's store-bought pumpkin pie: someone does all of the work for you all you have to do is cut it and top it with massive amounts of whipped cream. Cutting it really means grating it though, and one may whip their own cream. I mixed whipping cream and my homemade coconut cream to create coconut whipped cream to top the grated gesztenyepüré and be dusted with cocoa powder. Nagyon finom!

Comfort Food: Sauerkraut Soup

2009-03-09T15:20:00.001+01:00

This post is dedicated to my family who love to eat strange, but delicious, foods.

This is an aftershock of Eta's lángos party and another sign of how I'm learning Hungarian food. The second dinner she served that night was a nice sauerkraut soup with sausage and frankfurter slices. It was time to make my own version. So I set of to the Mars tér farmer's market with Franny and bought a half kilo of sauerkraut from one of the wonderful vendors, of which there are at least three, who pickle things. I say things because their products can range from whole cabbages to slices of watermelon!

I couldn't pass up the pickling onions or the sauerkraut-stuffed pickles. In my wildest dreams I could not have come up with this, but here it is.

Yup, sauerkraut-stuffed pickles!

My family, as weird as we are, love two things: pickled foods and spicy foods. Growing up we would usually consume an entire jar of homemade pickles when we went to Grandma's house, and we'd probably have a sauerkraut roast for dinner too. Of course we would have other dishes that prepared me for a life in Hungary such as cabbage and potato soup, so sauerkraut soup is not a stretch where I come from.

Instead of posting an even longer description of the process I'll simply post my recipe:

Sauerkraut Soup

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons sunflower oil
2 medium onions, chopped
4 small parsnips, peeled and chopped with greens reserved
2 medium carrots peeled and chopped
Salt
3 tablespoons paprika
Vegetable stock
½ roasted red pepper, diced
½ kilo sauerkraut, slightly rinsed
1 teaspoon caraway
Sour cream

Procedure:

Heat oil over medium flame and add onion, parsnips, greens, carrots and salt to sweat. When the vegetables are soft add paprika and mix well. Add vegetable stock, roasted red pepper, sauerkraut, and caraway. Simmer for 40 minutes and serve hot with sour cream and rye bread.

Jó étvágyat!

Exotic Foods: Coconut, Coconut Milk, and Coconut Cream

2009-03-08T14:54:00.000+01:00

Since I've been in Hungary I've really tried to purchase foods in season and locally. I stopped buying any tomatoes once the cheap, end-of-season ones were gone, but have continued buying, on occasion peppers, because I'm pretty sure they are grown in greenhouses around Szeged. On February 14th in Kalocsa I was shopping at the farmer's market and spotted something that does not belong to any country even remotely close to Europe: a coconut. I thought long and hard about buying one, I think they are in season, but they don't belong to the country's cuisine, but I was wanting to experiment with one, so in the end I gave in and bought one. I didn't do anything with it until March 5th, 19 days later.

I kept checking up on the coconut, making sure that it was still sealed and OK. While waiting for my landlady to arrive to collect rent I thought about the neglected coconut and decided it was time to do something with it. I had no tools to work on it, but used my mini Leatherman to open up the eye holes and drain the coconut water, there was very little, which makes sense for how long it had been sitting in the fridge. I then cracked it open, almost perfectly in half by hitting it on my porch stairs.

The first thing I noticed was how thick the meat was. This goes along with how little water I got from the coconut: the water builds up into the meat, the more water, the less meat. Harvesting the meat and peeling off the skin I was left staring at a plate full of coconut chunks. After eating a couple pieces I was still left with a decision. I could have grated and toasted the coconut, or turned it into milk and cream. Either way it needed to be grated, so I further contemplated my choices while doing so.

I finally decided to make milk citing the fact that doing anything in a Hungarian oven is more tricky than it should be so I put all of the grated coconut into my beaker and added boiling water to steep it.

Then using the immersion blender I pureed it and let it steep for a moment longer.

Having finished that I simply strained the meat from the liquid and put the liquid back into the beaker, putting that into the refrigerator to separate the cream from the milk.

I used the coconut milk when making chai, a delicious variation of it anyway. Sorry I didn't get a picture of that.

I did add the coconut cream to whipping cream and made whipped cream to add to desserts. It was delicious!

Comfort Food: Fettuccine Alfredo

2009-03-04T15:52:00.000+01:00

This is the first in what I hope will become a food series of comfort foods. Hungarian food really lends itself to being comfort food, but my first post will be Italian.

Fettuccine Alfredo, as it's known to the international community, has a contentious history and cannot be found in an honest restaurant in Rome under the name Alfredo. What most people can agree on is that the dishes broader Italian name and roots is fettuccine al burro e panna ( fettuccine with butter and cream). Of course variations involving the amount of butter, the inclusion of cream at all, and various cheeses are as numerous as there are people who eat pasta. My version, however, is a more or less, middle-of-the-road dish that does not claim any truth to its heritage, only my taste. Buon Appetito!

Lángos!

2009-03-02T15:29:00.001+01:00

Train from Szeged to Budapest and bus from Budapest to Heves and then bus to Tarnaméra and and the whole thing back again, but it was the destination rather than the journey this time that made it all worthwhile. In Tarnaméra lives Eta who back during Margie's birthday weekend in Budapest invited us to her house for lángos. So here we were sitting in here house a couple of weeks later watching Carla mix the dough.

Carla trying not to strain herself...

Skillfully mixed for about a half hour Eta took the dough, divided it into balls and stretched them out in to oil, one by one, frying them to perfection.

Eta, the master, at work.

Perfectly golden-brown and delicious lángos.

Once perfectly golden-brown and delicious she removed them and using paper towels, in her own hands no less, patted the excess oil off of the lángos before serving them.

Dressed and ready for consumption!

After garnishing the lángos with minced garlic, sour cream, and cheese this delicious fried bread was ready for expeditious consumption! Eta was a fantastic host and entertained us in her home for most of the day. She even translated clues from a Hungarian board game, Activity, so we could swear and curse each other's successes and failures. What a day!

More Snow!

2009-02-17T16:23:00.000+01:00

This is the side view of the church in Szöreg.

It's been snowing nearly non-stop today. As I was leaving school in Szöreg I decided to snap a few shots because I was so excited to finally see so much snow this past week.

This is a tree.

This is the church next to the school.

Freak Snow Storm on Friday the Thirteenth

2009-02-13T12:46:00.000+01:00

Snow!

Today's was a morning like any other...that was until I was hurriedly opening my door and I was greeted by a full carpet of white and thick snow fall. There was already a couple of inches at 7am and now it's noon and the snow still hasn't stopped though it has slowed down a lot and everything will most likely melt before the end of the day.

Mangalica Festival!

2009-02-11T02:00:00.000+01:00

Oh, where to begin? How about the samples? Hmm, lets start with the pig.

This fellow is a Red Mangalica. Notice that I'm using the Hungarian spelling which is pronounced Mangalitza, which is a common Austrian spelling. These two countries have been a safe haven for the breed as they are popular and have thrived for nearly a century and a half whilst this wonderful pig fell out of favor and became extinct in other countries. This is a huge bonus to both Hungary and Austria right now as farmers who are eager to jump on the porcine train of popular pork want to begin raising them. So naturally they have to go to the former Austro-Hungarian Empire to pick out their breeding stock.

Speaking of stock here are all three varieties of the Mangalica: Blond, Red, and Swallow Bellied. Notice that these happy pigs all have their tails intact. There are many reasons why industrial farmers remove the pig's tails. All of these reasons begin with farming and social conditions that the pigs live in that result in tail biting. But if the pigs are happy, interested, and allowed to spend their curiosity on exploration, and they are mixed well this is not a problem that necessitates the docking of their tails.

Please check out the following blog: Wooly Pigs. I've been following him for a while, but had forgotten about his farm after his pack was doing well. Heath Putnam imported his own pack of Mangalica's to Washington from Austria (I believe) and began selling meat to The French Laundry, among other venues, and has now expanded his sales to retail available in farmer's markets and cities like Seattle and New York. If you are close to these sources, please, check it out.

This is some of the Mangalica kolbász I bought. Notice the dark colors and fat. Mangalica are known for their delicious fat and juicy meat. This kolbász was smoked and has paprika in it. Smoke and paprika just go together so well! The overall flavor is sweet and smoky and the texture is really soft.

Various cuts of Mangalica including prosciutto.

The szalonna, bacon (raw in this case), I tried melted in my mouth like a good chocolate does. I also tried other types of kolbász, but it wasn't the only food I ate...

This is a pan of stuffed cabbage, Mangalica stuffed cabbage to be exact. These pans are similar to giant paella pans and hold a lot of food.

Here's a close up...

These are a few of the friendly Hungarians who produce some of the best porcine products in the world.

I'd like to leave you with an image of the animal that makes all of this possible...

New Knives and Homemade Jerky

2009-02-09T20:03:00.000+01:00

I'd like to start this post with a big thank you to my family: Nick who made smoked beef jerky, Sam who included a most indispensable candy dispenser, and my Mom who mailed it all. I just got it today at school and was most happy to see it!

On with the post. Spar, a supermarket chain store has been running a promotional for a while where for every 1,000 HUF spend you collect a sticker. Over time, these stickers add up and are saved for discounts off of the Henckels knives they are selling. When this happened during the fall I figure it was high time to have some decent knives. My best knife in Europe, until today that is, was a cheap Tesco paring knife with which I've done everything from prep for stir-fries and soups to cutting bread. These are no small tasks for such a blade: have you seen the 1 kg loaves of bread here?

The sticker dispensing part of the promotional is ending this next Sunday and I've been noticing that the knife stock has been running out at my friendly neighborhood Spar's so I added up my points last night and realised I didn't have enough points for 50% percent off of the chef's knife, but I did have enough to get 25% off of a chef's knife, a paring knife and a steel. So today, after lessons, I went to 3 different Spar's to find my two new blades. The first one at Csillag tér didn't have either. I went to the next Spar a couple of stops closer to my flat and they only had the paring knife, so I bought it. Then I went to the tiny little Spar next to Mars tér and they had the chef's knife! Mission accomplished!

New Henckels knives

New knives put to task on some homemade jerky

Please note the hand-crushed arbol chiles on the jerky

So I'm guessing Nick made a marinade of soy sauce, salt, pepper, and sugar before smoking the beef strips in his Little Chief. Good job Nick! I love the extra hot the best, it's not too hot for me. It's about 85% hot, but 100% delicious!

And just in case you were wondering: this is the indispensable candy dispenser. It's a Wii controller. Cheers!

tracks and packs dot blogspot dot com backslash hilarious

2009-01-25T00:46:00.000+01:00

®photo courtesy Franny Finstrom

Hot off the press from freelance photographer Franny Finstrom: she has located THE source for tracksuits and fanny packs. Where on Earth can both of these wonderful fashion statements be found? Where else but Hungary, of course!

Pay attention Tommy: apparently the UK term for a "chad", you know what I'm talking about, is a chav. Enjoy!

Christmas Break: Hungary and the Prisoner of Worker Strikes

2009-01-12T15:09:00.000+01:00

Starting from Szeged meant dealing with a few problems. Such as a train strike. The fastest, cost effective, and comfortable option to Budapest is the train, but with the trains on strike for a week my confidence of getting to there quickly, cheaply, and comfortably was waning. Franny and I checked the station hoping there would be an answer either way. The station was emptier than America's pocket book. Anyway, the ticket window was open and after consulting our adviser, an old woman chatting with the woman behind the ticket window, we bought the tickets and were told to walk out of the station and to the left to catch our bus. Yes, we had just bought train tickets for a bus, but don't get impatient, I'm getting there...we wished everyone a Merry Christmas and reflected upon the conundrum of purchasing train tickets for a bus.

Well, up pulled a city bus, but it didn't have route numbers glowing in the front like they should. We asked if it was the bus to Budapest and they laughed. They laughed, but at the same time beckoned us onto the bus, nay, they pulled us on, laughing as they did so. Despite the thoughts of being driven to Ukraine and into white slavery I have become used to odd experiences like this one and as odd as it sounds, white slavery is hardly on the list.

Ok, so we're on the bus which is populated by not a single Hungarian traveler. We have all of the groups represented though: there's the awkward Asian who sticks out all the more because this is a homogenized populated country in the off-season, some light travelers who are probably speaking English in the background, and us, the living-in-Hungary-but-trying-to-get-out group.

A short drive the the second train station in Szeged, one reserved for industrial uses, has us crossing the tracks to a lonely passenger train while until semi trucks are being driven onto a long train, tractor and all. Other than all of the odd prelude it's a train ride as usual where many of the platforms after Szeged were being used as normal. Upon arrival Franny and I jaunted over the Christmas market one last time in Vörösmárty tér, Budapest. Then we went to Jake's and Ellen's apartment one last time before to stay the night and have burritos. My first Mexican food in months. We were entertained by Carla's cat Boo who watched National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation with us.

Waking at a ridiculous hour Franny and I made our way to Ferihegy, the airport, Terminal 1. Of course upon arrival there is naught but a single soul in the entire terminal. The place is deserted, which is odd for any airport terminal. Because of the airport worker's strike Terminal 1 was closed but we didn't see the sign until we walked around a bit, it was one of those signs that one sticks on the top of a stantion. But we gladly took the opportunity to have breakfast in peace at the Illy café. Afterwards we caught the next bus to Terminal 2 which is surprisonly far away from Terminal 1. Then it was a game of lines... Oh, holiday traffic! Luckily the EU imported greeks to work the terminal which meant that one terminal worked better than two under the operation of Hungarians. (Sorry Hungarian airport workers!) But that was the joke at least, and I have to admit that everything did go smoothly everything considered. So that means we caught our plane on time. I'll meet you all in Germany in my next post!

Happy New Year! -- B.U.E.K!

2009-01-01T20:28:00.000+01:00

Boldog Uj Evét Kívánok!

Christmas Cookie Baking + Caramel!

2008-12-17T21:50:00.000+01:00

This post begins where the last one left off. I received some reinforcements from home in the form of a wonderful care package. This delivery also included a bag of Nestle's Toll House Semi-Sweet morsels, and a bag of Hershey's Chocolate Kisses in addition to my probe thermometer and baking sheet which were both crucial to the weekend's success. I took these supplies to Kalocsa for some good 'ol fashioned Christmas baking as is my family tradition. Though I should note that "baking" doesn't quite capture the reality of this family tradition. Pictures of chain-gangs, industrial speed, and true artistry all come to mind; in the best way possible. : )

Chapter 1: Ovens

Since the ovens here, all of them I've seen, I'm sure there's one or two professional model ovens in Hungary, all have a knob with arbitrary numbers to control the heat of the oven. This means nothing to me, and up to this last weekend I had not used an oven to bake anything, I've only used the broiler, because that's just about all these ovens are useful for until you can get a handle on the heat. So I put a paper clip on one of the racks and suspended my probe thermometer through that to take readings of the oven at different numbers. This gave me a ballpark idea of where the oven runs, but it was still wildly uncontrollable...

Chapter 2: Cookies

With the oven as tame and as reliable as a drugged circus bear it was time to bake, so we offered traditional chocolate chip cookies as a sacrifice to the oven gods. The dough was amazing! The baking was another story. It probably took 5 batches before we were happy with the results. We were constantly moving the orientation of the cookies on the sheet, adjusting the temperature, and doing rain dances in the living room, but to no avail some cookies were getting singed. Luckily we persevered as the flavor of the final product was not drastically affected, just the visual aesthetic. A side note: Saying "cookie" makes just about any Hungarian laugh because when they hear it they think "kuki" which is slang for penis.

Chapter 3: Breakthrough!

Between batches of cookie dough I conceived an idea: put the broiler pan in the oven to block the direct heat of the broiler. This was a promising idea as it would shield the cookies from some of the direct heat and instead bake more by the indirect heat of the oven walls and the broiler pan. This was a major help! This enabled Franny to successfully bake her walnut crescent cookies which were not only absolutely beautiful, but delicious and perfectly baked. I learned earlier this week that Hungarians refer to this as dios kifli.

Chapter 4: Kissey Time

Although the oven had been mastered for the walnut crescents that was not to last. Although we didn't experience the same problems as with the chocolate chip cookies the kiss cookies would be a little underdone at the proper time, or begin to scorch before the time was up. This was really frustrating after having believed that the oven had been tamed. Here's an important Hungarian lesson: just because something works for you once doesn't mean it'll work again... or something like that. :P

Chapter 5: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

Between batches of cookies I put my thermometer to further use. I've attempted caramel twice since I've been in Hungary; and without a thermometer. It was hard times without a proper gauge or recent enough experience to estimate the temperature of the caramel. The first batch prematurely recrystallized and became a chunky horrible mess after I added the cream and butter, not good. The second batch was nice and smooth, but when I tried to make caramel apples with it I succeeded only in making toffee apples: I had gone too far. So this time was just right. I had my trusty helper to tell me exactly when the caramel was ready to pull and cool. I sliced the solid sheet of caramel into ~2 inch squares and wrapped them in baking paper.

Chapter 6: End Game

These attractively festive tins were purchased at Tesco *shakes fist* for a decent price. Franny made them look even better by expertly installing the baked goods and candy to their new homes! Everyone I've given these to has loved them. I gave Trixi, my host teacher, the biggest tin because she has been the biggest help and because she's wonderful. She gave cookies to fellow teachers and I had the experience of walking into the teacher's room between classes and have teachers kind of point at me while nodding at Trixi and then Trixi would tell me that they loved the cookies. I had many requests for recipes and baking advice, what a day! Too bad two of the cookies are nearly impossible without the imported chocolates.

Birthday/Christmas Delivery!

2008-12-11T16:36:00.000+01:00

Now to preface this those of you who know me probably know that food is kind of important to me, and to those of you who don't really know me, you probably know the same thing. So I got a text today while I was at the bus stop in Sándorfalva leaving for Szeged. It was Trixi, and she was telling me that two packages had arrived for me at the high school. Then not two minutes later Sándor called me telling me that there was yet a third package. This all happened at once: I was so excited that I got off the bus early, but closer to the high school than my usual stop, to walk the rest of the distance instead of taking another bus to Csillag ter. When I got into the office what teachers that were still remaining from the day's lessons seemed to be waiting in anticipation for me to open the boxes. But I was hesitant because I was trying to figure out how to get two giant boxes in my arms and on the bus to my apartment on the other side of the city.

Luckily I now habitually carry plastic grocery bags with me where ever I go. So I opened the boxes and started to pretend like I had just gone to some magical store where Jiff peanut butter, the Nestle's Toll House chocolate chips, Tao of Tea loose leaf teas, udon noodles, Vietnamese cassia, Japanese Curry, Ghirardelli chocolates, and Oberto beef jerky, and real soy sauce were available. Or how about my silpat, probe thermometer, kosher salt (yes, you heard me, kosher salt), and "real" baking sheet. (Sorry Hungary, you just don't win when it comes to readily available baking supplies.)

So I loaded up all of my treasures when I realized that one giant bag would be really nice but I didn't have that, so I used the next best thing, the biggest of the boxes that was sent to me had been reinforced by the Hungarian Postal Service, there is "Posta" tape all around it where the box was beginning to fail, and filled it up with my grocery bags. So now I'm this awkward American in the middle of Szeged carrying a huge box of something, people really can't tell, but, is that a ....baking sheet sticking out of the top? Anyway, I made it home fine and was so excited I took this picture. I'm really excited to do some Christmas baking this weekend. Seriously, these packages couldn't have come at a better time! I'll be sure to post about my candy making. Stay tuned!

Kömény Update!

2008-12-08T16:02:00.000+01:00

I found kömény, that is real cumin, at a "middle eastern" market just two blocks towards the city center, on Kálvária Sgt., from my flat! I also bought some tahini, chickpeas, yellow lentils, and 100% Halal certified corned beef.

Kömény Madness!

2008-12-03T23:25:00.000+01:00

This is a picture of caraway fruit, yes they're fruit...

So I've had this problem trying to figure out the difference, in Hungary, between cumin and caraway. This is not a problem when specimens of either one of the two fruits are in front of me: the appearance, smell, and of course, taste are all unique to either fruit. Now this has eluded me ever since I was told some pálinka I was drinking in Transylvania was cumin flavored, it definitely was not! Why would a VERY intelligent Hungarian native speaker with a near native fluency of English make such a mistake and tell me I was drinking pálinka made from cumin? And how could this EVER be a confusion in the first place?

So what we have here is a good 'ol fashioned cultural and linguistic mystery. I turned to my dictionary, two of them actually, a matching set written by the same Hungarian language experts: one is Hungarian to English (Magyar-Angol), the other English to Hungarian (Angol-Magyar). So I started from the Hungarian side of the equation by looking up the presumed word for cumin: kömény. The dictionary tells me that this is the Hungarian word for caraway, yay! No more confusion! But that was a little TOO easy, and it didn't account for the entire misunderstanding in the first place. So I dug into my English to Hungarian dictionary and looked up cumin: kömény. What!? No help there, so I turned to caraway and saw the very same entry: kömény. So I have one dictionary telling me that two very different spices are the same, while the other is telling me that kömény only means caraway.

With this mystery only half solved, if anyone looks these words up the authorities are telling them that one Hungarian word is just as good as two English words when in reality that just isn't true and it misleads good people seeking knowledge, I had to go deeper...

So, I did a little digging on the internet and found a site for spices and found a little history on the matter. To begin: caraway is more native and has been adapted on a far wider culinary scale in Northern and Eastern European countries. The opposite is true for the part of Europe and Asia where the cumin fruit reigns supreme. Some languages also have equal and opposite names for the two spices that include naming the native fruit by a local name, then referring to the other fruit by a similar name, but with an exotic twist. For example, in Hungarian you now know that caraway is called kömény whereas the foreign cumin can go by the exotic misnomer of egyiptomi
kömény: makes a lot of sense, right?

This is a picture of cumin fruit, yes, they're fruit too!

Suppli

2008-11-27T15:26:00.000+01:00

Thanksgiving was a great meal and party. The day after was just a little different, a nice rest and a chance to savor some leftovers. When I lived in Rome I learned a really cool trick using leftover risotto called suppli: a breaded and fried ball of mozzarella stuffed risotto. The possibilities are as endless as combinations of risottos. I made a vegetarian mushroom dish. This is what the sequence looks like...

1) Form balls around mozzarella cheese.

2) Then it's time for an egg bath and a roll in breadcrumbs

3) Repeat and fry a few at a time in a heavy skillet using a good oil

4) Be sure to keep on eye on them and roll them when needed for even cooking

5)Cook until golden-brown and delicious! Buon Appetito!

Hirschboxerl and Bergkäse

2008-11-20T15:43:00.000+01:00

Betwixt the Mozart kugel, the waldhonig, the Hirschboxerl and the Bergkäse I found many new favorites. Not to mention that I found most of these foods in one place, the public market. As I look out the bus window on my way to work every morning, which is a different bus and different destination for every day of the week, and as I travel through Europe one fantastic, heart-warming constant is the sight of the public markets, big and small. You win for public markets Europe!

This delightful discovery was made in Salzburg, Austria and is made locally. The charcuterie artisans use venison to make this very simple yet tasty salami.

The Bergkäse is a mountain cheese that is made in the mountains (duh!) in the immediate area of Salzburg. The wheels are massive, but thin which makes them manageable. Please note the cutting board for this cheese: a table with a large enough diameter for a single wheel of Bergkäse and a giant knife hinged to it to cut to the center of the wheel; genius! The cheese is aged 8 or 12 months with the latter being a little more dry tasting, and sharper. Delicious!

The pretzels are top notch and made fresh daily!

Austrian organic forest honey: probably one of the best souvenirs anyone can find!

The Mozartkugel, first called Mozartbonbon when created in 1890, are a Salzburg native chocolate created by Paul Fürst. Fürst's original achievement of the Mozartbonbon was the first perfectly round confection. The original recipe to this Paris fair gold medal winner (1905) remains a secret, but the subsequent name "Mozartkugeln" had no copyright and has since been used to launch a severely successful campaign of chocolate famedom. I had the good fortune of going directly to the industrial source of this wonderful confection: the Mirabell chocolate factory (A Kraft subsidiary) in Grödig which is just outside Mirabell (Salzburg). Though I wasn't able to tour the factory itself, I was able to go into a store in the factory that sells all of the chocolates, candies, cocoa powder, marzipan, stb. stb. at about a 1/3 of the retail price! It must be noted that the handmade counterparts to the industrial "knock-offs" can still be found in Salzburg in 4 stores that bear the name Fürst Confiserie. The original recipe handmade chocolates continue to win medals over the industrial counterparts today.

Pálinka and Kerítésszaggató

2008-11-19T15:08:00.000+01:00

It just occurred to me that I had not given any specific word on pálinka. Pálinka is an eau de vie, a distilled fruit brandy, usually twice distilled, and must be made within the borders of Hungary or specific areas of Transylvania or Austria. There are similar spirits, but they cannot be sold under the label of pálinka.

The most common, and popular varieties I've encountered range from fruits like peaches, plums, apricot, and cherry, but also include cumin and paprika. I've seen all varieties take on further variations by adding honey or other fruits such as raspberries.

This alcohol also has an infamous reputation. Going back to legalities according to law the pálinka must contain alcohol in a range anywhere from 37.5% to 86%. I recently found a reference for the most alcoholic pálinka: kerítésszaggató which when translated means "fence-ripper". Cool, huh?!

Körösfő and Kalotaszentkirály

2008-11-19T12:45:00.000+01:00

More to come.... until then this blog is brought to you by the letters:

öüóúőűáé!

Gyergyoszentmiklós- October 24, 2008

2008-11-19T12:43:00.000+01:00

More to come...

Székelyudvarhely/Odorheiu Secuiesc- October 24, 2008

2008-11-19T12:41:00.000+01:00

More to come...

The Hungarian Holiday- October 23, 2008

2008-11-19T12:38:00.000+01:00

More to come...

Zetelaka/Zetea- October 22, 2008

2008-11-19T12:34:00.000+01:00

We arrived to Zetelaka to a fantastic event of Imre and Anikó in traditional costume handing us palinka as we got off of the bus. I didn't know it at the time, but they were about to become my favorite hosts of all of Transylvania! After "moving in" because we were staying here for two days we were served a wonderful meal of soup, csirke tejföl, fried potatoes, rice, and wine.

Segesvár/Sighisoara- October 22, 2008

2008-11-19T12:31:00.000+01:00

On to Segesvár, the purported birthplace of Vlad Ţepeş , a.k.a. Dracula. He may have lived here for a few years but left when his family had to opportunity to make him a princeling in the south.

Marosvásárhely/Târgu Mureş- October 22, 2008

2008-11-19T12:28:00.000+01:00

Marosvásárhely was once a great Hungarian city that was ruined by the Ceauşescu regime. The Communist Romanian government ordered the eviction of nearly all of the ethnic Hungarian residents and at the same time offered monetary incentives for ethnic Romanians to move to the city and take up newly formed jobs as part of the Romanian industry. The city itself is still a great center of Northern Transylvania, but the percentage of Hungarian residents is minimal.

Torockó/Rimetea- October 21-22, 2008

2008-11-19T12:11:00.000+01:00

Back in the aqua mobile and on to the Transylvanian village of Torockó. Upon arrival we had a fantastic meal, beginning with pálinka of course, and consisting of a carrot and parsnip soup, meatballs, and mashed potatoes.

After dinner I walked through the village and as there was so little light pollution I was able to look at the stars! It was so nice to see stars again, and whats more, the milky way. After such a wonderful evening it was a pleasure to be able to turn in for the night.

Before breakfast the next morning I was up early and decided to walk around the village by myself. It was during this time that I snapped some of my favorite shots of the entire trip. Then I headed off to eat. For breakfast we had coffee, tea, csipke bogyó lekvár (a thick rose hip jam), bread, meats, cheese and my newest obsession: zakuszka! Zakuszka and csipke bogyó lekvár are traditional foods of the region and are served as hearty supplements to the winter diet that usually lacks any fruits or vegetables. The rose hips contain massive amounts of vitamin C, as does paprika, but the peppers aren't grown in the mountains and what paprika is here must be imported from the Carpathian basin and greater Hungary. Zakuska contains some paprika but is a special mixture of tomatoes, onions, and eggplant as well. This wonderful sauce is spread on bread in the mornings and couldn't be more delicious!

After breakfast the whole group went to the Torockó museum that captured village life as it was when Transylvania was still a part of Hungary and fame and riches of this village was brought not by tourism, but sweat and toil from the iron mines and forges. During the 14th century German immigrants moved to the area to mine and smith the ore found there. This continued until industrialization moved the jobs out of the village collapsing its industry and artistry.

Bánffyhunyad/Huedin-October 21, 2008

2008-11-18T18:38:00.000+01:00

I was thankful for this stop not only to break up the monotony of traveling and only stopping at gas stations through Hungary and Romania, but for its cultural substance and for the minister who gave us a great start to the trip by explaining the recent history of the area in a church that goes back to the strength of Hungarians in Erdély.

This traditional Hungarian Protestant church had two sets of carved hand carved and painted ceilings. The motifs are that of the traditional Székely culture and include pre-Christian symbols. The entire church was also bedecked in embroidery from the community. The traditional colors of this artform are black, white, red and blue. The only way embroidery survived as strongly as it did was that it was passed down from women to girls within the church community. A peice of embroidery was made for baptisims and especially for confirmations. The funeral wreath of Kossuth Lajos is also enshrined here, as his memorial took place in this church.

This was especially important during the time of the Ceauşescu regime during which ethnic Hungarians were not allowed to speak Hungarian in public and the church became the only safe place for their culture. In essence Ceauşescu attempted to erase one of the most historically entrenched cultures of the Transylvanian region from its future. As this is a very controversial subject I'll limit the remainder of my comments. Suffice to say this was a moving site, and a great introduction to the region.

2008-11-09T14:32:00.000+01:00

This is a 1 kilo bag of paprika. Pure, unadulterated, Hungarian Red booger sugar, I mean ground pepper. This is serious stuff, and a daily essential for Hungarian dishes, yup, it's not just a garnish. This set me back 2,400 HUF, not too bad, especially considering that it's way better than 99% of the paprika exported to the States! It's fresh and that means a lot to volatile spices like paprika. Plus I bought it in Kalocsa from the farmer direct. I know exactly where it was grown, dried, and ground.

Food Fight: A documentary

2008-11-09T13:33:00.000+01:00

A quick word before I get on with blogging about my trips to Transylvania and Salzburg. If you see a movie with this title arrive in a theater near you, GO SEE IT! For many people who actually read this blog and know me will already know some, or a lot, of what this movie will tell you, but more people need to be aware of what the role of food plays in their lives. Please, go see this movie, because I won't be able to for a long time.

Here is a link to Michael Ruhlman's blog where I first read about it.

Happy Eating!

Harvest Festival

2008-11-04T20:12:00.000+01:00

So to celebrate Halloween before the October vacation, Franny bought a pumpkin at the Mars tér market. Franny and I carved it and named him Csaba!
Then I carved him and made pumpkin soup and toasted pumpkin seeds. I also made a gnocchi dough, and had Franny spent a lot of time rolling and cutting it out. So I put both together and created pumpkin soup with gnochhi dumplings.

Oh the Pleasure of a Simple Soup...

2008-11-04T19:31:00.000+01:00

So while I'm procrastinating finishing my blog entries for my vacation, from which I learned so much that it's hard to process in even a few sittings, I made some soup. This is a vegetarian soup made from celery root, and has a Hungarian pasta called Eperlevél that finishes it. Enjoy!

A Prelude...

2008-11-02T22:52:00.000+01:00

So I went to Transylvania from October 21-October 26 turned around in Budapest and jumped a train to Salzburg, Austria and stayed until I went back to Budapest for Halloween, turned around to Kalocsa then finally back to Szeged tonight. It's been a lot of hours traveling, lots of new foods, and 3 countries. I'll be making a lot of posts, hopefully, about the separate cities and topics.

OK, T-Kabel

2008-10-17T19:23:00.001+02:00

It took you three weeks but you finally hooked me up with the Internets. It's been fun dealing with you, but I hope I don't have to deal with you any more than paying the bill.

Oh, how happy I am to have Internet!

Lecsó and Tarhonya

2008-10-14T21:35:00.000+02:00

OK, one last food blog for tonight, I just couldn't wait any more to finally post some of these. A big thanks to everyone who reads through them. So Lecsó is a basic pantry item for any Hungarian kitchen. It is a stew made of tomatoes and paprika, two vegetables that are readily available in mass quantities by the end of the summer. It is not uncommon to see people buying burlap sacks of paprika at the market to make and can this at home. Lecsó can be added into lots of different dishes or to help beef up a sauce.

Tarhonya is a traditional Hungarian pasta that is then formed into pellets and dried. To cook it add onion to fat and saute. Then add the tarhonya to lightly brown, then add paprika, parsley, and water. Bring to a simmer and cook for about 15 minutes. Easy and delicious!

Jó étvágyat!

Orcchiette alla Vodka

2008-10-14T21:23:00.000+02:00

The Pasta-

This amazing pasta is made completely by hand. Franny came over and was key to making this work. It is also a double batch and I didn't measure anything so don't ask. I also made the pasta on the counter by putting down enough flour and salt and making a volcano. Into the crater I cracked 4 eggs and added some olive oil. Mixing this and folding the flour into the eggs, then kneading it and letting it sit to let the flour fully absorb the moisture.

The pasta is divided out into 8 equal portions. Each portion is then rolled out by hand into long snakes then cut into small pieces then pressed into the palm of my hand to make a coin shape that is thin in the center and thicker on the edges. This creates a chewy delicious pasta that holds onto sauce very well.

The Sauce-

This is started by slicing an entire bulb of garlic as thinly as possible, and then sweated in olive oil until the only thing you can smell is delicious garlic. Meanwhile scald tomatoes then separate the seeds and skins from the fruit. Add a good deal of vodka to the oil and cook down to a syrup. Add the, now crushed, tomatoes and add salt then simmer. Add to this a good deal of cream.

To finish this dish add fresh chopped parsley and grated cheese.

Buon Appetito!

Töltött Paprika

2008-10-14T20:38:00.000+02:00

A couple of weekends ago when Vivvi, Lauren, and Lyla visited me in Szeged this is what I made. They watched me make it while they ate Fank and Lecso. It was a lot of work, but they didn't mind. :) This has a filling of pork, rice, parsley, carrot tops, and onion. The sauce is made from a roux and tomatoes. This picture does not show the sour cream that should be on the dish as well. Jó étvágyat!

Mashed Potatoes, Szeged Style

2008-10-14T20:33:00.000+02:00

In an effort to cut down on food costs, I've taken to buying foods that have been put on sale, which is to not say that they are bad, just that they won't be good for long. So here is an example of buying a kilo of small potatoes and turning it into mashed potatoes, with sour cream and what else? Paprika of course!

Payday!!!!

2008-10-09T17:19:00.000+02:00

I finally got paid! Hell yeah! Money for food, and rent, and travel! Life is happy at the moment!

Hell Yeah!

Fuck you T-Kabel, Fuck you!!!

2008-10-08T20:29:00.001+02:00

Dear T-Kabel,

Despite the fact that I had to, upon my first visit, receive a contract that I had to have my landlord sign and return in order for you to talk to me about getting an internet contract, for an entire year, two weeks ago I have still not received a modem or internet service. What the fuck?!

Sincerely,

JonClark

Eww, McDonald's!

2008-09-28T15:41:00.000+02:00

So I'm sitting in McDonald's right now stealing their power and signal because I'm still waiting for internet to be installed in my flat. In fact, two nice gentlemen from T-Kabel showed up on Friday to turn of my cable signal (all three channels) but had not yet received papers for my internet, so no dice. But I found McDonald's on the walking street and they have a wireless signal too. Just in case anyone was wondering I haven't bought anything from them yet, and I'm hoping I don't get caught. I'm trying to be as inconspicuous and in the corner as I can be. (Any readers with iPhones wouldn't be a complete loss if they came to visit) And I decided that I was past due for a blog entry, I apologize to anyone who has actually been checking in to see if I had posted anything yet.

I can't seem to upload any pictures yet but when I can I have some nice shots of Paprika Festival in Kalocsa, Budapest city shots, and I'll have some separate entries for some of the food I've been making while I've been here. So far I continue to gather recipes and ideas for cooking Hungarian food. I hope everyone is doing well! I'll blog again soon! Szeged will be having their own Paprika Festival (Paprika Napok) October 3-5.

Debrecen

2008-09-08T15:19:00.000+02:00

Another weekend another city. This last weekend I went to Debrecen for its jazz festival. Do to a lack of looking up times for the free concerts and thinking they would be later when the day was cooler we waited to venture out. The weekend, however, was still a success! We partied, ate pizza, drank palinka, and danced. That was the weekend in a nutshell. A huge thanks to Ali and Rachel for hosting! And to Rachel's friends Sucre and Edit for dinner and hanging out. And to Lyla, Lauren, Jacob, and Vivvi for all attending.

Kalocsa

2008-09-01T11:50:00.000+02:00

I went to beautiful Kalocsa this weekend. On the way, during the 3 hour bus ride from Szeged, I passed a sign for Sükösd. I was very excited to be that close. I hope I go there soon. I crashed with Franny and helped clean and break in her kitchen.

We went to the farmer's market and bought fresh peaches (barack), onions, parsnips, potatoes, a paprika plant, tomatoes, and garlic. I made peach soup, and a vegetarian gulyás. Both were very good! The peach soup could have definitely been made into a peach ice cream.

Safe and Sound!

2008-08-24T18:32:00.000+02:00

I have arrived and am happy to not be circling the globe in an airplane. I'll be in Budapest for a week then I'll be moving on to Szeged. So far I have been to an outdoor club, had goulash at a nice restaurant, and begun orientation. I am attempting to get into teaching mode...

If anyone needs to get ahold of me I can recieve calls at no cost, from America, at 011.36.30.519.9096.

Craziest things I've ever done!

2008-08-08T11:08:00.000+02:00

So I have a plane ticket good for two weeks from today that will take me from Portland, OR to Budapest, Hungary. The Point? To teach English in the city of Szeged. How crazy is that?

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Happiness

2008-06-26T03:07:00.000+02:00

I'm finding that happiness is becoming evermore elusive to me. I'm not sure why, or even if happiness is important. But I do know that for those who subscribe to the idea that perception is in fact reality then a good face on everything is the most important expression of that idea in certain situations. I do not necessarily agree. I do, however, enjoy moments when I am happy. So this continues to be a conundrum.

So in order to begin processing this idea of happiness as it plays out in my life I am attempting to make a list of things that I enjoy and bring the feeling of happiness to moments.

Traveling, sharing, bettering myself, challenging myself, school, friends, good food, wine and spirits, cooking, creating, discussing, doing things for others, giving and receiving massages, and music.